Yahoo and Carnegie Mellon University Partner to Advance
Personalization and Mobile Technologies

February 12, 2014 10:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
announced a five-year, $10 million partnership highlighted by an
industry-first mobile toolkit that will enable CMU researchers to easily
experiment with Yahoo’s real-time data services, letting them test new
ways that machine learning and interface technologies can improve
personalized user experiences.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with the exceptional faculty and
students at Carnegie Mellon, which has established itself as a premier
institution for machine learning and user interface technologies,” said
Dr. Ron Brachman, Chief Scientist and Head of Yahoo Labs. “By creating a
way for Carnegie Mellon University researchers to work directly with
Yahoo software and infrastructure, we hope to speed up the pace of
mobile and personalization research and create a better user experience.”

The mobile toolkit serves as the infrastructure for a living laboratory
for researchers to explore new approaches to understanding human
behavior by using machine learning algorithms to more accurately predict
user needs and intentions. It is also expected to enable the development
of new personalization techniques and interfaces to provide a more
compelling user experience. Members of the CMU community who opt-in to
use the experimental mobile software will provide researchers access to
real user data and the opportunity to rapidly iterate on the
technologies.

The partnership, named Project InMind, also includes a new
Yahoo-sponsored fellowship program at CMU. The program will provide
financial and research support to computer science students and faculty
members. Yahoo Fellows will have the opportunity to pursue research in
disciplines such as machine learning, mobile technologies,
human-computer interaction, personalization, novel interaction
techniques, and natural language processing, with annual financial
support from Yahoo and mentorship from world-class computer scientists
at Yahoo Labs and CMU.

“The InMind program provides unique new opportunities for the
outstanding faculty and students at CMU to partner with Yahoo and its
talented scientists and engineers to potentially further the frontiers
of mobile applications and technologies,” said CMU President Dr. Subra
Suresh. “This partnership is a clear demonstration, in the tradition of
CMU, of how scholarly scientific research combined with industry
relevance and perspectives could advance technologies that have a global
social impact.”

“This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for our students and faculty to
work directly with a team of leading-edge researchers from Yahoo Labs on
technologies that could benefit hundreds of millions of mobile users,”
said Dr. Randal E. Bryant, University Professor and Dean of the School
of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. “The overall commitment
in this new partnership is a testament to our shared desire to advance
the science of machine learning, user interfaces, and mobile
technologies.”

The InMind Project will be directed at CMU by Dr. Tom Mitchell, Fredkin
University Professor of Computer Science and Machine Learning and Head
of the Machine Learning Department, and by Dr. Justine Cassell, the
Charles M. Geschke Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

Since its establishment in 2005, Yahoo Labs has served as the Company’s
incubator for bold experimentation, applying its scientific findings to
create personalized, delightful experiences for Yahoo’s users and
enhance value for its advertisers. Yahoo Labs continues to innovate
across numerous research areas including machine learning,
personalization, mobile, advertising science, image processing, natural
language processing, and more.

The Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, now celebrating the 25th
anniversary of its transformation from a department to a school, is
consistently ranked as one of the world’s top computer science schools.
Its programs reflect a broad view of computer science, encompassing such
disciplines as robotics, language technologies, machine learning,
human-computer interaction and computational biology, while preparing
students to use computation to transform society.

About Yahoo

Yahoo is focused on making the world's daily habits inspiring and
entertaining. By creating highly personalized experiences for our users,
we keep people connected to what matters most to them, across devices
and around the world. In turn, we create value for advertisers by
connecting them with the audiences that build their businesses. Yahoo is
headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and has offices located
throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Europe, Middle East
and Africa (EMEA) regions. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.net)
or the Company's blog (yahoo.tumblr.com).

About Carnegie Mellon

Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu)
is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs
in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public
policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 12,000 students in the
university’s seven schools and colleges benefit from a small
student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on
creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary
collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has
campuses in Pittsburgh, Pa., California’s Silicon Valley and Qatar, and
programs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties concerning Yahoo's strategic and operational
plans for the partnership between Yahoo Labs and CMU (including without
limitation its impact on the speed of mobile and personalization
research, the scope of its impact on and benefit to mobile applications,
technologies and users, and its predictive capabilities and contribution
to the user experience). Actual events or results may differ materially
from those described in this press release due to a number of risks and
uncertainties. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among
others, the possibility that the expected anticipated benefits and
impact of the partnership may not be realized.

Yahoo is registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are
trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.